West Must Not Dither on Zaire

The humanitarian crisis is worsening daily in Zaire. An estimated 1.5 million Rwandan refugees, driven there from their own country by civil war, are struggling to survive as Western and African officials debate how to deliver aid and, ultimately, convince the frightened throngs to return home. Lives are lost each hour that food, water and medical care are delayed.

The French have proposed a military intervention force manned by soldiers from a number of countries. Spain has agreed to send troops. Other nations are considering their options. Decisions by the United Nations and the United States are key to deployment of aid and policing personnel.

Washington has given $30 million to the relief effort since September but has ruled out dispatching U.S. ground troops, a decision consistent with lessons painfully learned in nearby Somalia. State Department officials are considering instead logistic support such as airlifts of humanitarian supplies and equipment. This is an appropriate response and should not be delayed: Refugees are fleeing into inaccessible parts of Zaire, beyond the reach of aid missions.

To avoid the mission creep that doomed the international effort to bring peace to Somalia, the French government and others should pursue a narrow objective in Zaire and seek the broadest possible participation. The immediate aim should be to stop the fighting and help the refugees. Any effort for political solutions should come later.

Zaire’s despotic president, Mobutu Sese Seko, who is in France battling cancer, has given his support for intervention to suppress the fighting, which is taking place in Zaire’s eastern provinces and involves Hutu and Tutsi bands from neighboring Rwanda and units of the Zairian army. Mobutu has nothing to lose.

The immediate goal should be a cease-fire and deployment of aid missions, guarded by whatever foreign troops are committed to separating and policing the combatants. Ultimately, repatriation is the goal. But more than safe passage will be needed to persuade Hutu refugees they would be safer at home, where their old Tutsi enemies are in charge. The outside world cannot change history, but it can help the helpless.